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Same thing happened to me.......maybe were being punished for bringing real intelligent debate back to the forum

And on topic......we will not see in our lifetime a real honest and open debate to resolve our fiscal issues.......i truly believe that. The more i see and hear, the more i think that the government will just monetize our debt and kill us with inflation and domestic crisis. Think Carters' economy circa 1979, only multiplied a billion times worse

Same thing happened to me.......maybe were being punished for bringing real intelligent debate back to the forum

And on topic......we will not see in our lifetime a real honest and open debate to resolve our fiscal issues.......i truly believe that. The more i see and hear, the more i think that the government will just monetize our debt and kill us with inflation and domestic crisis. Think Carters' economy circa 1979, only multiplied a billion times worse

I want somebody that has chewed on this to offer me some perspective... it is not beyond me, I just get more from a conversation...

We wont see a real and honest debate on this issue with the current people we have seated in Washington. Somewhere along the way, the electorate lost sight of the fact that being a character does not mean a person has character. Washington has precious few real statesmen left, and even fewer scooled in the art of civil debate and the art of negotiation. The people in washington play to the sound bite society that passes for the everyday citizen.
Until such time as someone comes along that can unite the people we have elected, or we the people throw them all out on the collective special interest asses, nothing can really change.

Curiosity demands that I ask... Can I have posted so little lately that my post count has moved back in time? lol...

The author of the article left out this was over 75 year span by trustees and puts a little better time perspective on the number and how this transcends just a baby boomer generation problem. Not that I don't agree this has be addressed sooner rather than later. The interest on this spending will almost match all discretionary spending by 2037 and entitlement spending will have gone up from 10% of GDP today to 15% in 2030 and 18.5% in 2050.

CBO predicts that spending on entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—will grow from 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) today to a staggering 18.5 percent of GDP by mid-century.

This unsustainable growth in spending and debt would also cause net interest costs on the U.S. federal debt to spiral to unbearable levels. CBO predicts that net interest costs will increase nearly sevenfold, surging from 1.4 percent of GDP today to 9.5 percent in 2037. This is particularly troubling as net interest costs already exceed spending for many government programs. By 2037, net interest costs—just the interest on the publicly held debt—would nearly equal spending on all discretionary programs, including national defense and education.

It's going to HAVE to be a combination of monetization, spending cuts, and slightly higher taxes (in that order IMO). I'm a little less cynical than Mo, it won't happen quickly but I think that Washington is going to be forced into action and will have to make certain cuts, especially to defense spending.

Interested to see my post count now... was over 10K w/ no more than 15 posts in the 3am crew thread.

Last edited by spydertl79; 12-09-2012 at 03:06 PM.

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."Henry Wheeler Shaw

No matter where you are in the political spectrum....our government just spends too much money. Even with raising taxes we still run up the debt. Especially when new tax revenue is going to more spending and not balancing the budget. And let's not forget the same old neo-con/pre-emptive/WMD war excuse that's still alive and well today even with Obama and his water carriers. Military and War spending is the first place to cut. But you're totally fooling yourself if you think that's enough. Not even close. We have to cut across the board. Unfortunately Obama will continue the same bloated military budget and then some.

"Politics is the Art of Looking for Trouble, Finding it Everywhere, Diagnosing it Incorrectly, and Applying the Wrong Remedies"